Rosmah, a pinch of salt on an open wound

by  Wong Choon Mei

Malaysia's First Lady Rosmah Mansor is back in the news. And this time, her flamboyant image is getting the ordinary Malaysian workers all hot under the collar. While they sweat, she sings. While they toil, she travels. And when the bill comes, they pay!

“It feels like a pinch of salt on an open wound,” said Youth NGO Solidariti Anak Muda Malaysia or SAMM at its recent National Congregation that brought in scores of coordinators from all over the country.

Indeed, the 60-year-old wife of Prime Minister Najib Razak will have to do more to convince the people that she is not a money-spending machine. Whether her husband retains control of the country or not after the next general election, his administration will be remembered for its huge and costly fiascos that somehow have an uncanny habit of backfiring.

"Nobody wishes her ill but it is hard to see her changing her habits. So for me, I don't think she will be well remembered, and it is a pity because she could have done so much given her position," PKR Women's chief Zuraida Kamaruddin told Malaysia Chronicle.

"But now, when you mention Rosmah, people will giggle and answer, 'Oh cincin 24 juta or handbeg bernilai 1 million. To me, that's not a legacy and till now, we are still waiting for the PM's office to reply to our request for details of their spending trips to Kazakhstan, the Middle East and Europe."

The PKR leader was referring to a huge RM24million diamong ring that Rosmah purportedly ordered from New York jeweller Jacob & Co. She is also known for her huge collection of handbags, which in total are believed to cost more than a million ringgit.

Najib also to blame

And to be fair, Najib's own misjudgement are to blame, not just his wife's.

As far as the people are concerned, a fool is he who trusts blindly in his advisers. In the last few weeks, a group of political strategists including members of the team behind Tony Blair’s “New Labour” began working to rejuvenate Najib's 1Malaysia platform. But 1Malaysia flopped not because of the lack of advertising, but because of the lack of real follow-through execution.

Apart from the British team led by a Mr Alastair, Najib is still seeking advice from Paul Stadlen, the former boss of APCO Malaysia, whose contract was renewed despite protests that the parent firm in New York was controlled by senior managers, who were former high-level officers in the Israeli secret service.

But behind the UK and US/Israel groups is believed to be Omar Mustapha, a director in the national oil firm Petronas. Disliked by Mahathir, Omar's entry into Petronas was a baptism of fire with senior staff openly protesting Najib's bid to slot him on the board.

But Najib persisted and Omar, a thirty-something Oxford-graduate who also runs his own Ethos financial services consultancy, has been overseeing Najib's media thrust since 2009, the year Najib took over from ex-premier Abdullah Badawi.

Najib's strategy appears to be a devious one, using the Utusan Malay-language daily to publish some of the most outrageously racist statements and postulations ever seen in the country's 5-decades-old history.

Seasoned watchers say this was to assure the Malay community that their political dominance would reign supreme, while forcing the non-Malays to look to Najib for fairplay. Whether this strategy came from Najib himself, Omar, APCO and now the British team, is hard to tell and it does not really matter. All of them would have failed.

Supreme Council: Explain hudud!

Despite spending huge amounts of public funds by the hundreds of millions, Najib's approval rating plunged 6 percentage points in August. This is a freefall from the May level of 65 per cent.

Nonetheless, instead of staying his hand, Najib and his advisers have continued to stir up ruckus after ruckus. And perhaps, the final nail in their coffin is the hudud law issue, which has deeply offended the Muslim and Malay communities.

Umno insiders are whispering that Najib will be hauled up by the party's Supreme Council to explain his declaratation that hudud will never have a place in Malaysia. His political clumsiness is expected to be compared unfavorably against his deputy Muhyiddin Yassin, who was alert enough to say that Umno supported hudud but could not implement it now.

" "Umno leaders (in Kelantan) cursed Najib for saying 'No' to hudud. Because of that statement, it simply means Umno can now close shop in the state," said UIAM law professor Aziz Bari.

Failures that Malaysians have to pay for

Sometimes, it pays to rely on one's own commonsense, rather than to pin one's political hopes on others, no matter how much fees they charged. No doubt, Najib does not have to pick up the bill, and leaves it to his countrymen who are already struggling with inflation and hiked prices to pay.

But really, it does not mean that the more expensive it is, the better. Just as in the case of Rosmah's handbags and the gargantuan ring of fire - 'branded' stuff can bring trouble of its own.

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Source : MC